Saturday, May 15, 2010

The man who endlessly pontificates on every topic imaginable strangely silent on Iran's new partnership with Al Qaeda

In his first year in office, President Obama gave 411 speeches and statements, using the teleprompter 178 separate times. On 52 occasions in the first year, he spoke specifically about the Democrat Party's plans to nationalize the health care system.

Yet on the subject of the stunning revelation that Iran is assisting Al Qaeda -- the same group that killed 3,000 innocent Americans -- the administration is mum, two months after the news first broke.

Consider: the man who doesn't hesitate to pontificate on Israel's apartments in East Jerusalem, the Cambridge Police Department, a faulty oil rig in the Gulf, the profit margins of health insurers, Arizona's enforcement of immigration laws and every other imaginable topic has suddenly turned into President Marcel Marceau.

Two months ago, General David Petraeus revealed the nefarious partnership.

Iran is assisting al Qaeda by facilitating links between senior terrorist leaders and affiliate groups, the commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East told Congress on Tuesday... On Tehran's ties to al Qaeda, Gen. Petraeus said the group "continues to use Iran as a key facilitation hub, where facilitators connect al Qaedas senior leadership to regional affiliates."

On Thursday, the Associated Press elaborated on the burgeoning partnership.

Al-Qaida operatives who have been detained for years in Iran have been making their way quietly in and out of the country, raising the prospect that Iran is loosening its grip on the terror group so it can replenish its ranks, former and current U.S. intelligence officials say.

This movement could indicate that Iran is re-examining its murky relationship with al-Qaida at a time when the U.S. is stepping up drone attacks in Pakistan and weakening the group's leadership. Any influx of manpower could hand al-Qaida a boost in morale and expertise and threaten to disrupt stability in the region.

U.S. officials say intelligence points to a worrisome increase in movement lately.

In late 2008, Saad bin Laden -- one of Osama's sons -- and four other AQ officials left Iran. Since then, other AQ members have slipped out of the country.

Some experts believe that anyone from al-Qaida freed to leave Iran must be returning to the battlefield...

Others believe that, with al-Qaida families left behind, terrorists may actually be working for Iran, gathering intelligence or passing messages before returning to Iran.

Either way, it's being noticed. Clare Lopez, a former CIA officer and a senior fellow at Center for Security Policy, says it's not a good sign.

"Movement like this doesn't augur well," she said.

And the man who never stops blathering about every topic known to man is strangely silent on the one issue of critical importance to all Americans.


Hat tips: Barry Rubin and Dan from New York.

IMF: Say, Sparky, right about now wouldn't exactly be the best time to increase federal spending -- unless you wanted to trigger an economic collapse

The latest edition of the International Monetary Fund's Fiscal Monitor (PDF) was made public on Friday. Even the terse, spare prose of economists living on various governments' tabs could not conceal the ominous message: this ain't exactly the time for any country -- least of all the United States -- to take on more debt.

In terms of adding both gross debt and overall deficit (as a percentage of total economic output, or GDP), the U.S. is outspending Portugal, Great Britain, Italy and -- wait for it -- Greece. This level of deficit spending, on the heels of massive borrowing in 2009, is simply unsustainable.

Canada is reducing its debt.

Italy's borrowing has increased recently, though at a much slower rate than prior years.

Even Japan, which sells its debt primarily to its citizens, has begun to slow the rate of growth.

The United Kingdom has reined in its debt growth as well, as evidenced by the flattened hump.

Meanwhile, the United States' deficit spending looks like a moonshot.

Despite all of the TARP spending and so-called "fiscal stimulus" programs, the U.S. and other developed countries suffer from dramatic downturns in revenue. For you drones out there, that means the real, private economy is flat on its back. Real businesses like energy, insurance, manufacturing, etc. You know, the ones that you Marxists hate.

This year alone, the U.S. has bonds (debt) representing 21.2% of its entire economic output coming due (maturing). This means that new debt must be issued. Heard of a Treasury Auction? That's a sale of debt and the amounts that must be refinanced are staggering.

The risks are immense. Consider Greece and the panic it caused. The chart directly above depicts interest rates on various countries' debt from November 2008 to May 2010. As investors lost confidence that the Greek government could make its bond payments (service the debt), interest rates skyrocketed. This helped precipitate the 1,000-point drop in the Dow that we experienced little more than a week ago. The risk for the U.S. is stark: should investors conclude that the federal government will be unable to make its bond payments, our interest rates will necessarily skyrocket. The result would be hyperinflation and economic catastrophe, not dissimilar to the pre-Hitlerian days of the Weimar Republic when the German economic system melted down and its currency became worthless.

The cost to insure yourself against a governmental default -- a failure to make its interest payments -- is called a CDS spread and is represented here. You can clearly see what occurred to the price of Italy, France and the U.K. CDS when Greece began to implode.

The IMF also attempted to predict the effect of new deficits, based not only on projected spending but also entitlement programs (Social Security, Medicare, etc.) that will suffer from massive growth as the population ages. Based on this measure, the U.S. fiscal situation is the worst in the world. Its projected budgets are, by far, the most irresponsible on the planet.

And as for the Keynesian School of Economists -- the Paul Krugmans of the world who believe that governments should grow unchecked and spend their way out of recessions -- this graph shows that the Obama-Democrat plan for spending was doomed from the start, as we conservatives predicted. Put simply, the lower the deficit spending, the better your economy will grow.

That's what our founders knew. That's why they tried to restrain what the federal government could do with specifically enumerated powers. You know, that living-and-breathing contract with America called the Constitution.

Even the IMF is trying to tell us to stop the insanity: "If governments fail to signal a credible commitment to reduce debt ratios, the resulting increase in interest rates (and decline in growth rates) could increase the [possibility of a dangerous financial condition]... fiscal adjustment will require a sizable, and sometimes unprecedented, effort."

Democrats in Congress are not reducing or stabilizing debt... they are increasing debt to heights never before seen in world history, including a new entitlement program that threatens to capsize the fiscal ship of state.

Call it an Obonzi Scheme that puts this country on the precipice of disaster.

It's November or never, my friends.


'The IED President'

Dan from New York calls Obama 'The IED President' for reasons that will soon become apparent.

John Hinderaker of Powerline asks, "Is the United States Greece?," and then cites this factoid: The national debt in the US (on a gross basis) will climb to above 100pc of GDP by 2015 - a far steeper increase than almost any other country.

Hinderaker concludes: "The Democrats in Washington are both too stupid and too ideologically committed to read the writing on the wall. They are leading the United States over a financial cliff, and they have no intention of turning back. On the contrary: if they can, they will hobble our economy further by enacting a carbon tax. There is only one way to stop them, and to save our children--from whom greedy, selfish Washington liberals are borrowing trillions of dollars--from a lifetime of debt. The Democrats must be voted out in 2010, and Barack Obama must be denied a second opportunity to deconstruct the country that he doesn't much like."

At home and abroad, Obama's policies are timed to explode intermittently in the future - mostly too far out to damage him politically in the here and now. Americans need the foresight to defuse them before they go off in our faces, not after it's too late.

It's November or never, America.

The fiscal time-bomb is even worse than that. In addition to the "off-the-books" entitlement programs (Social Security, Medicare, etc.) that aren't included on the federal balance sheet, consider Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The hidden tab for the GSEs is estimated at over $6 trillion.

Those "job shops for out-of-work Democrats" were destroyed by the likes of Andrew Cuomo, Janet Reno, Franklin Raines, Jamie Gorelick, Jim Johnson and Rahm Emanuel through a series of brain-damaged policy decisions and outright criminal activities.

Big government is literally crushing America -- and Democrats in Congress and the President don't appear to care a bit.


Awesome: Another $23 Billion of Your Money to be Redistributed to the Teachers' Unions

Democrats in Congress and the President are doing their best to undermine the financial system before the November midterms. Unsatisfied with transferring $60 billion (abrogating contract law along the way) with payoffs to the UAW... not content with a $800 billion dollar "Stimulus" package that rewarded the AFL-CIO and the SEIU... and not quenched with jamming a massive new entitlement program down Americans' throats in the midst of unprecedented deficits... they are now trying to take $23 billion more of the next generation's money and Fed-Ex it to the Teachers' Unions.

A post on The White House blog (via ABC News) late Wednesday evening announced that it was time for "bold action" to save teachers' jobs.

Specifically, Arne Duncan, Obama's education secretary wrote the following to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid:

We applaud Chairmen Harkin, Miller and Obey for crafting legislation in direct response to these challenges.  S. 3206, the Keep Our Educators Working Act, H.R. 2847, the Jobs for Main Street Act,  and H.R. 4812, the Local Jobs for America Act, each call for $23 billion in emergency support to preserve education jobs modeled after the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund (SFSF) established in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).  This funding would keep teachers in the classroom while helping to sustain meaningful and necessary reforms in public education across the country.

We urge Congress to include this funding in the supplemental appropriations bills soon to be considered.  We also urge Congress to include $2 billion in support to localities for police and firefighters to ensure that our communities remain safe, as well as $1 billion in funds for the Child Care and Development Block Grant to preserve early childhood education jobs and ensure that our youngest children do not lose the supports and services critical to their learning and overall well-being.  


So this is another multi-billion dollar payoff to the NEA and the AFT, the hard-left partisans who control public school teachers, invariably support big government Democrats and continuously wage war against the taxpayer.

Gee, this seems so responsible, what with all of the spare money we've got.

Seriously, it's hard for me to conceive of a more partisan and dangerous government than our current set of leaders at the federal level.


Hat tip: Michelle Malkin and Doug Powers.

Larwyn's Linx: Eric Holder Must Go

Have a great link you'd like me to review? Drop me an email. You can also install a Larwyn's Linx blog widget.

Nation

Eric Holder Must Go: GWP
Our busted deportation system strikes again: Malkin
Muslims Building Super-Mosque At Ground Zero: Ace

Let it Burn: AT
Team Obama Will Delay Terror Hearings: RWN
‘Left-Wing Epistemic Closure’: Driscoll

Economy

Urgent action is required to reduce the debt and deficit: Blankley
The Health Insurers' Faustian Bargain: AT
Support AZ as it feels the heat from boycotts: Hot Air

Crony Capitalism in Chicago: AT
GM in line for another $10B of your money: BlogProf
20-year-old patriot exposes Posen park scandal: SouthTownStar

Climate & Energy

Cap and Scam: Harsanyi
The Heartland Climate Conference Smear Campaign Begins: AT
Canuckistan to Ban Ki-Moonbat: GTFO: CBullitt

Media

Distorting the Truth About Crime and Race - The New York Times is at it again: City Journal
Incompetence with a capital 'H': Shayne
Beltway Elites Hate It When the People Speak: RWN

Sarah Palin's Speech in Chicago: AnotherBlackCon
Donald Berwick: Obama's Medicare/Medicaid nominee on video: Durden
Thought experiment: the most lame administration ever: GM's Place

2005 Kid’s Bush/Hitler Art Gets Award, 2010 Kid’s Obama/Commie Art Gets Censored: RWN
Krugman Lying About Greece and U.S.: Stossel
Palin: 'Mama Grizzlies Will Take Back America': Breitbart

World

Obama's Known of Al-Qaeda Ties with Iran for a Year, but Still No Action: PJM
Return to the Abyss: Roubini
Che and the Workers: AT

The Immigration Issue Is Not About Racism: Chesler
President of UN General Assembly: Gaza Siege Is Worse Than Nazi Death Camps: GWP
Secure Western Civilization: Lt. Col. Allen West

SciTech

The Ammo Shortage Continues: PJM
Apache.org incident report for 04/09/2010: Apache Infrastructure Team
Postal-themed PDF Spam: Sophos

Cornucopia

Elena Kagan to be Played by Rachel Dratch on SNL?: Cube
iOwnTheWorld Weekly Roundup, May 15th, 2010: iOTW
HS B-Ball Boycotter’s Controversial Past: S&L

Image: People's Cube
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: PA-12: Scott Brown for Tim Burns

QOTD: "The Branch Davidians in Waco could have saved themselves a s***load of trouble if they had just claimed to be radical enviromentalists." -- Me. Just now. (backstory)


Friday, May 14, 2010

People's Republic of California Commissar Schwarzenegger Announces "Absolutely Terrible" Budget Cuts

Today, California announced that it's bankrupt. Governor Schwarzenegger stated that he'd been forced to take an "axe" to an out-of-control stage budget. As an aside, aren't Democrat-controlled Utopias cool?

Several things have changed since the last budget:

• The legislators didn't come up with enough savings.

• Expected $6.9 billion from the federal government... received around half.

• Federal judges have blocked changes to health and human services, prevented us from using the "scalpel" and now have to use the "axe"

Eliminating major programs:

CalWORKS, most child-care programs, In-Home Supportive Services, Health Families program...

Includes a 5% pay cut for state workers.

To be fair to Democrats, who could possibly have anticipated that encouraging unchecked illegal immigration -- with amazingly rich welfare benefits -- might cause a fiscal, eh, imbalance?

...Schwarzenegger on Friday called for eliminating California's welfare-to-work program, one of the deep cuts he proposed to close a $19 billion budget deficit in the coming fiscal year... Slashing the welfare program would affect 1.4 million people, two-thirds of them children.

...the state's 12.6 percent unemployment rate ranks among the highest in the nation and tax revenue remains low. In April, personal income tax was $3 billion less than projected... The state's general fund spending will be $83.4 billion for the new fiscal year, the lowest level in six years. The deficit accounts for more than 20 percent of all projected spending...

...Gina Jackson, a single mother who lives in Fremont in the San Francisco Bay area, said she would not be able finish her college degree in political and social science without the state's assistance. She currently receives about $1,000 a month to cover after-school care for two of her four children... "I certainly can't take my kids to school with me every single day," said Jackson, 45, who was laid off from her job as an administrative assistant two years ago.

...On Friday, the governor made good on his threat from earlier this year to eliminate the state's welfare-to-work program unless the federal government gave California an additional $6.9 million [sic -- they meant billion], which Schwarzenegger maintains is its fair share. So far, the state has received nearly $3 billion... ...Democrats want to close tax credits and loopholes, noting that the state allows $50 billion worth of tax deductions.

"We will not pass a budget that eliminates CalWORKS. We will not be party to devastating families," said Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento. "What kind of civilized society maintains business tax breaks and eliminates child care? That's not the California I take pride in living in."

Never mind that the public sector unions continue to brutalize the taxpayer. In the formulations of Democrats, government needs to grow and grow and grow, no matter what shape the private sector is in. Call it Miracle-Grow for Government:

To help close the budget gap, the governor is asking lawmakers to change the way the state calculates education funding to save the state more than $2 billion, which would hold year-over-year spending roughly flat for public schools. Overall funding for K-12 schools and community colleges has already dropped by 12 percent over the past three years.

The governor also wants to eliminate state subsidies for child care, which would affect 142,000 children...

Schwarzenegger [also] proposed cutting $15 million from the program and shifting more of the costs to recipients, including raising the co-payment for emergency room visits from $15 to $50...

The governor also proposed to move non-violent felons to county jails. I don't see how anything could go wrong with that, can you?

...Schwarzenegger will revive a plan to house 15,000 nonviolent felons in county jails instead of state prisons, a cost-cutting move that likely would result in some inmates leaving jail early.

...Local law enforcement agencies vigorously opposed a similar idea that Schwarzenegger floated in January, in part because the state would not have reimbursed counties for housing inmates. That proposal would have saved the state $291.6 million...

Now: imagine this sort of fiscal catastrophe at the national level.

Because that's what's happening at this very moment with the Obama-Democrats.

...the administration's release of its 10-year budget - the most irresponsible federal document ever released - ...plans for unsustainable debt and does not even propose a path out.

The Congressional Budget Office reported in the summary of its document, "The Long-Term Budget Outlook": "The federal budget is on an unsustainable path - meaning that federal debt will continue to grow much faster than the economy over the long run. ... Rising costs for health care and the aging of the U.S. population will cause federal spending to increase rapidly. ...

...In the face of financial ruin of the nation, it was unconscionable to pass a new health entitlement that almost all Americans know will add trillions to the debt.

It's November or never. Rally your neighbors, your families and friends. Vote for the most fiscally conservative Republicans you can.

Because the clock on the Democrats' deficit time-bomb for America is ticking. Be a real-life Jack Bauer and help defuse it.


ObamaCare Today: Democrats unveil National Abortion Database (NAD) to track all terminated pregnancies in the United States

One of the lesser known aspects of the Democrats' massive new health care bill is its mandate for a national health care database.

...it requires doctors to record patients' treatments in an electronic medical database and monitors doctors' decisions. Dr. David Blumenthal, the Obama administration's National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, explained in the New England Journal of Medicine last April that "embedded clinical decision support" — his euphemism for computers telling doctors what to do — will manage the quality of doctors' decisions.

ObamaCare dictates that every detail for every patient is recorded and maintained in a super-secure government database, which literally has zero chance of ever being compromised.

Feminists, who shouted "hands off my uterus" during the sixties' pro-abort demonstrations, are beginning to realize what the national health care database means.

Put simply, Democrats have put in place the mechanism for a National Abortion Database (NAD) to track all terminated pregnancies in the country.

But not to worry: the government is quite skilled at protecting personal information and would never, ever use that sort of personal information for political ends.

In fact, I hear rumors that NAD will be stored on a super-secure USB flash drive at the White House itself, where Rahm Emanuel will personally oversee security.


Larwyn's Linx: Johnny-come-lately McCain: Sickly smell of desperation

Have a great link you'd like me to review? Drop me an email. You can also install a Larwyn's Linx blog widget.

Nation

Johnny-come-lately McCain: sickly smell of desperation: Malkin
Chris Christie on Disagreements: Patterico
The Mytho-Poetical Free Lunch: Cold Fury

Kagan's Contempt for the First Amendment: RWN
Will the Senate see Kagan's long paper trail?: York
Kagan taught courses on 'Presidential Lawmaking': VS

Economy

OK economy thrives after immigration crackdown: Blumer
Highland Park, Ill Officials Hide and Lie Over AZ Decision: RWN
The Treasury-Financial Complex: WSJ

Why California (and our country) are almost bankrupt: Babalu
Governor Ganja: AT
First Fed Invoice For Bailing Out Europe: $9.2B: ZH

Climate & Energy

Of Course We Should Keep Drilling Offshore: RWN
EPA Cracking Down on Evil U.S. Manufacturers: GWP
Sylvania takes on 60-watt bulb with LED light: CNet

Media

The Washington Post's Sudden Concern For Bipartisanship: Wizbang
'Six tea party protesters were led away from the Capitol in handcuffs by state police...': BlogProf
Rush Limbaugh Will Take $1 Million Less To Leave New York Forever: Insider

Kagan Is Anti-Military, Anti-Gun, Anti-Free Speech But Media Refuses to Label Her a Hardcore Lib: GWP
Obama Buyer's Remorse: AT
Civility? CIVILITY???: Cold Fury

World

Syria, Iran, and Turkey Openly Defy Obama, as Russia Regains Mideast Influence: PJM
U.N. Human Rights Council Welcomes Some New Members: Corner
UN determined to destroy America's Second Amendment: PJM

Watch Eric Holder Squirm: Malkin
Bert Corona and the Communist Roots of the "Immigrants Right" Movement" : NewZeal
Euro collapse fears spark panic buying of gold: London Daily Mail

SciTech

Boeing's unmanned Phantom Ray makes dramatic video debut, set to take off this December: Engadget
Indian outsourcing firm plans data processing centre in prison: VNUnet
HTC moves to block Apple iPhone, iPad imports: NewsFactor

Cornucopia

Fart Blanket Hopes To Build Better Marriages: WCPO
Regulation of the Day 137: Brownie Recipes: OpenMarket
Culture of Stupid: News from Doswell

Image: Maktoob.
Today's Larwyn's Linx sponsored by: Gates of Vienna

QOTD: "The public disgust and anger is growing fast. The Tea Party movement has gained acceptance and vigor at the grassroots level. Some, like Bill Clinton, attempt to associate the Tea Party participants with terrorists, which is ludicrous. George Washington, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison, and especially the outspoken Benjamin Franklin might be maligned if alive today, or at least harassed with tax audits" -- Jim Williee.


Thursday, May 13, 2010

Elena Kagan's Thesis in 90 Seconds: Radical. Socialist. Marxist. She Must Be Blocked From the Supreme Court At All Costs.

RedState's invaluable Erick Erickson has published the full text of Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan's thesis. I have transcribed some of the key graphs, below. In fact, you can read her entire, 130-page thesis in 90 seconds here if you wish. I'm not joking about that.

It's now crystal clear that Kagan was nominated for one reason: to rubber-stamp Obama's radical agenda, including an individual mandate for socialized medicine.

She is a radical. She is a socialist. And she must be blocked at all costs.

Acknowledgements ...I would like to thank my brother Marc, whose involvement in radical causes led me to explore the history of American radicalism in the hope of clarifying my own political ideas...

...most historians have looked everywhere but to the American socialist movement itself for explanations of U.S. socialism's failure...

...the American socialists· "failure to build a movement that even resembled Sombart's idealized notion of a class-conscious party--a failure which they shared with most of their European counterparts--did not render their party any less significant. Nor did such a failure render their party any less successful...

[To explain why the] American socialist movement of the Progressive Era suddenly fell apart... we must turn to the internal workings and problems of the socialist movement itself.

...the dissolution of the Socialist Party resulted not from the walkout of the syndicalists in 1912 but from the infinitely more disastrous departure of the communists seven years later...

...[Early on] the [American] socialists divided into two camps: those of "constructive" and "revolutionary" socialism.

...the Russian Revolution set the spark to their long-smoldering rebellion, and the Socialist Party burst into flames. In 1919, the SP split into two, and the New York City communist movement emerged... by the last 1920's, the socialist movement in New York City was dead.

...The SP's first priority was to prepare for revolution than to work for reforms -- to bring ultimate salvation rather than immediate relief.

Conservative craft unions could not develop the unity and class consciousness that alone would lead workers to vote the socialist ticket. They could not compel a resistant capitalist class to accept an SP electoral victory. Nor could they prepare the workers for the administration of industry in the cooperative commonwealth. According to such left-wing leaders as Boudin and Slobodin, then, the socialists needed to do all in their power to set New York's unions on a militant path. If that meant interfering with some other "arm", so be it.

...Most historians have viewed World War I as an unqualified disaster for the American socialist movement...

[During the war] both local and national socialist leaders had taken their stand: they would condemn the war in the strongest terms... having formulated their policies, the socialists turned with rekindled enthusiasm to active propaganda work...

Leon Trotsky, living in New York..., urged the Socialist Party to adopt more daring tactics in its fight against the war. In particular, he suggested that the socialists publicy declare their intention to transform the international conflict into a civil one...

Finally, the Socialists began to hold mass meetings in Madison Square Garden, with audiences that even non-socialist newspapers estimated at some 13,000. Most often, the socialists simply protested the war's continuation, using arguments and rhetoric similar to those employed before the U.S. became a belligerent...

We are told that we are in war to make the world safe for democracy. What a hollow phrase! We cannot ... " force democracy upon hostile countries by force of arms. Democracy must come from within not from without, through the light.of reason and not through the fire of guns.

Prior to April 1917, the socialists had enjoyed relative freedom to oppose the war... however, the situation [then] changed considerably. The government prosecuted socialists; the police harassed them; crowds of hysterical citizens lent federal and municipal officials a helping hand. [Ed: Racist tea-baggers, I'd surmise]

...On June 15, 1917, Congress passed the Espionage Act, which prohibited an person from willfully helping the enemy, inciting rebellion in the armed forces or attempting to obstruct the government's recruiting efforts... [Ed: sounds like the modern Democrat Party]

...[In 1919] the intra-party dissension that had built up for almost two decades came to a climax. In the wake of this battle, American communism was born... [which advocated a revolution in America]

[However] ...Revolutionary socialism... had never suited the conditions of American life, conditions which demanded a program with a "realistic basis."

...[The radicals caused the Red Scare, in which massive raids were launched by the authorities on revolutionaries]... The effects of the Red Scare on the communist movement were' nothing short of cataclysmic. Nationally, membershipship in the two communist parties decreased from an estimated 70,000 in 1919 to 16,000 in 1920...

...In 1933, the [Socialist-inspired labor union].ILGWU, along with many other formerly left-wing unions joined the mainstream of American political life by jumping on the New Deal bandwagon. These unions viewed the NRA both as a means of withstanding the depression and as an opportunity to recoup the losses they had suffered as a result of their struggle with the communists. To be sure, the NRA did enable the vast majority of these labor organizations to expand at phenomenal rates...

...There was, however, a price. In the pl:ocess.of ·endorsing Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, the ILGWU ceased to be a radical oppositional force, with deep links to socialist politics and ideology...

Conclusion In our own times, a coherent socialist movement is nowhere to be found in the United States. Americans are more likely to speak of a golden past than of a golden future, of capitalism's glories than of socialism's greatness... Why, in a society by no means perfect, has a radical party never attained the status of a major political force?

...[America's] societal traits... a relatively fluid class structure, an economy which allowed at least some workers to enjoy [prosperity]... prevented the early twentieth century socialists from attracting an immediate mass following. Such conditions did not, however, completely checkmate American socialism...

...Through its own internal feuding, then, the SP exhausted itself forever and further reduced labor radicalism... to the position of marginality and insignificance from which it has never recovered. The story is a sad but also a chastening one for those who, more than half a century after socialism's decline, still wish to change America.

...if the history of Local New York shows anything, it is that American radicals cannot afford to become their own worst enemies. In unity lies their only hope.

Their only hope for change, if you get my drift.

How anyone could perform this level of navel-gazing -- longingly pining for the joys of socialism -- after the utter failures of Marxism, is beyond me. It's not like 1910, Elena -- we know this crap doesn't work and has never worked!

Republicans: are you sick of being punched in the face by leftist Democrats yet? Are you sick of having sand kicked in your face? Then stand up and block Elena Kagan. A lifetime appointment for a self-described radical?

Call your Senators and demand they filibuster Elena Kagan. Call the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee and demand they block Kagan's nomination.

A lifetime appointment for a crypto-Marxist is beyond the pale.


Linked by: Hot Air. Thanks!

President Obama in Buffalo: "You're welcome, America!"

The press release aggregator known as Politico offers its nominee for 2010's most hilarious lede.

Emboldened by positive jobs numbers and an uptick in his own polls, President Barack Obama stood squarely behind his economic record Thursday and accused Republicans of doing nothing to contribute to the growth.

Actually, it's hard to contribute when you're pimp-slapped to the curb, pilloried with a massive propaganda campaign and actually locked out of every substantive policy discussion.

Obama said he was empathetic to public concerns over bailouts but defended his administration’s unpopular spending spree on aid for the auto industry, Wall Street and the economy as a whole. He didn’t like the bailouts either, he told an audience in a hard-hit region of upstate New York. He cast his choices as noble ones in which he defied “the politics of the moment” to do “what the moment required.”

Noble choices, if you're a self-designated Marxist ideologue who visibly bristles at criticism.

...The president touted the gain of 290,000 jobs last month, giving credit to his administration. Despite the increase in unemployment last month to 9.9 percent, he unequivocally predicted economic growth every month going forward.

Gee, Mortie, if I subtract the Census jobs and the "birth-death" mathematical calculation from the official numbers, I come up with about 36,000 real jobs created. At this rate, we could recover the eight million jobs lost in the recession in, oh, a little under two decades.

I can say this beyond a shadow of a doubt: Today, we are heading in the right direction,” Obama said. “Those tough steps we took — they’re working. Despite all the naysayers who were predicting failure a year ago, our economy is growing again. Next month, it will be stronger than last month. And next year will be better than this year.”

The right direction -- if you're an Alinsky-ite bent on bringing the entire system down. In fact, I'm willing to bet a nice, shiny Kruggerand on precisely the opposite. We're headed for a major fiscal catastrophe unless we throw this government out in November. Even then, we're cutting it way too close for comfort.

As a reminder, consider yesterday's cheery headlines, which President Obama somehow forgot to mention in his Chavez-like speech.

• U.S. posts 19th straight monthly budget deficit
• U.S. must avoid Greece-style crunch: Orszag
• US More Bankrupt Than Ever - $83 Billion April Deficit Is Record
• California Now One Of The Top 10 Government Default Risks In The World
• The U.S. Government Is About To Get Hit With 'The Perfect Storm' Of Debt

And in the midst of this orgy of deficit spending that threatens to capsize the ship of state, Democrats in Congress and President Obama plan to ram $200 billion in new deficit spending through before the Memorial Day recess.

I urge you to call your Congressional representatives and thank them for President Obama's fine stewardship of the economy and his deft handling of Iran, North Korea, Syria and all of the Communists on the march in South America.